Do you have clients, friends, or family members who you wished used Dropbox but don't? If your pleas to sign up for a Dropbox account have fallen on deaf ears, FileStock is an easy way to request files from these people. FileStork is free and doesn't require your Luddite friends to download and install a bit of software. Your friends won't even need to create a FileStork account.

To use FileStork, head to FileStork.net and hit the orange Get Started button on the home page. You will then be taken to the Dropbox Web site, where you'll be asked to allow FileStork to access your Dropbox account. Then it's back to the FileStork Web site, from where you'll be able to send requests to your non-Dropbox-using contacts.

To start using FileStork, all you need to do is tell Dropbox to allow access to the service.
Matt Elliott/CNET

To send a request, click Create New Request from the left-hand column and choose One-time Request. Fill out the e-mail addresses for your intended recipients, type out a message for your request, and name the folder where the files will reside in your Dropbox account. You can also restrict the types of files people can upload and password-protect your request. (In addition to a one-time request, you can also create a standalone request, which lasts until you delete it from the FileStork Web site.)

With one-time requests, recipients will get an e-mail with a link that will take them to the FileStork site, where they'll be greeted with a simple page with two large buttons: Select Files and Send. All they need to do is hit the Select Files button, find the files on their hard drive you have requested, and hit Send. Really, I don't see how FileStork could have made the process any easier.

Recipients of your FileStork requests will get an e-mail with a link to this simple page.
Matt Elliott/CNET

The file(s) will then be uploaded directly to your Dropbox account, and FileStork uses SSL encryption to keep prying eyes away. A folder titled FileStork is created in your Dropbox account, and the folders you create for each request are located inside it, with subfolders by recipient e-mail inside those. You need to create a new folder for each request for files; you can't specify that files get added to an existing folder. Also, FileStork has a file-limit size of 75MB. These few limitations, however, do not detract from this simple, free, and useful service.